Ch5 notes.docx

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School

York University

Department

Psychology

Course

PSYC 3480

Professor

Noreen Stuckless

Semester

Winter

Description

Chapter 5 Study Notes
 Cautions about the way psychologists conduct their research
 We need to be cautious about interpreting results
 1. Biased samples can influence results – most research is on college students, we
know nothing about non college attendees, mostly white people
 2. Researchers expectations bias results – usually what the research wants
influences the study
 3. Seldom find gender differences in research – frequency distributions  tell
us how many people in a sample receive each score, typically a frequency
distribution for males and females have a LARGE OVERLAP and SMALL
SEPERATION … males and females are reasonably similar
 4. Researches seldom find gender differences in each situation – we cannot make
general statements about gender overall. Males and females have remarkably
similar
 5. Gender differences found in research should not discourage the opposite gender
from pursing a career in a certain field
 Meta-analysis approach to summarizing Studies
 Originally used the box-score approach – combine results of various studies and
tally results to form overall yes or no
 However, box-score turns up ambiguous results
 Meta-analysis – provides a statistical method for combining numerous studies on
a single topic
 First locate all appropriate studies on the topic
 Separate females from males, then calculate the general average from the two
 Cohn’s D is the number produced by meta-analysis results  effect size
COGNITIVE ABILITIES
 Females and males are most similar is general intelligence measured by IQ test
 IQ tests eliminate gender differences
 IQ scores for males greater variability than IQ scores for females
 Media often claims that women are better then men at multi-tasking, however,
untrue!
Complex cognitive tasks
 Equally competent when problem solving and creativity tasks performed
 No gender differences in learning styles
Memory Ability
 Women score higher on memory tasks then males
 Women are better at recall memory
 Women are more accurate at remembering life events
 Girls more emotional therefore better at recalling life events RE: CHAPTER 3
 Women are better at recognizing faces
 More accurate at recalling detail regarding clothing or hair on another person
General verbal ability
 Little research on gender comparisons on verbal ability
 Gender differences girls better vocabulary then boys @ 3years old then goes away  Similar spelling vocabulary abilities
 Females better at verbal fluency
 SAT reading comprehension minimal gender differences
Reading disabilities
 Males more likely then females to have language problems
 Teachers may target males who are less attentive and more active as having
reading disabilities, however, they are just excited
 Males 1.2 times more likely then girls to have reading disabilities
Mathematics Ability
 Most attention / research in this area
 Females and males similar in math ability
 HOWEVER females actually get better grades in math then boys
 TAKE HOME MESSAGE  BOYS AND GIRLS SIMILAR IN MATH
ABILITY
 Grades in mathematics courses
 Females earn higher grades in 5 6 8 and 10 as well as college math courses
 Females perform better in similar situations with previously learned material
 Males perform better in uncertain situations with new material
Mathematic